


Not Her

by lifespunfromdreams



Category: Babylon Berlin (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Prostitution, Weimar Germany
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifespunfromdreams/pseuds/lifespunfromdreams
Summary: January 1930. Berlin is going through a cold winter. After the stocks crashed and economic crisis erupts, Charlotte has to go back to a place she thought she'd left behind for good. But this time, someone follows her into the darkest corner of her life.
Relationships: Gereon Rath & Charlotte Ritter, Gereon Rath/Charlotte Ritter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Not Her

He can’t unsee it.  
It’s just a split second until she reacts. They barge through the door, guns drawn. Henning stumbles into the room, scattering clothes piled up on a table next to the door.   
“Damn”, Czerwinski swears at him. They start a discussion of some sorts as the two other cops come up behind them, ready to intervene.  
But there is nothing to intervene in. The room is empty except for piles of costumes, props and papers. Before the others have processed what’s happening, she has already taken her bag, scrambled across a pile of shoes and slipped out through the backdoor. She seems to know exactly where it leads.   
And that look in her eyes… she knows exactly what kind of place this is.   
He knows, too, and it breaks his heart.   
Not her. He wants her as far away as possible from this place, and yet there she was, unmistakably. She stared at him with her grey eyes, for that one heartbreaking second, so lost and pleading and panicked.  
Before she vanished. Out alone, in the street. He needs to find her. That’s all he knows. She shouldn’t be alone now.   
“Chef? Hey, Chef!” Czerwinski tries to get his attention. He has to snap out of it. He is on a crime site. They’re here to comb the whole place for evidence. He needs to give orders. He needs to …  
“Should we follow her?” Henning asks.  
Gereon shakes his head. “No… no. I… I’ll do that. You secure the evidence. Be … meticulous.”  
He tightens the grip around his gun and pushes his way past his colleagues, leaving them behind confused. He should have given them more specific orders, made sure they know what to look for. Films. Photos. Receipts, especially.   
But he doesn’t care. It’s a high-profile case, but he doesn’t care in the least. He doesn’t give the stacks of paper another look as he quickly crosses the corridor towards the front door.  
The cold winter air envelops him once back outside. His breath immediately turns into a whisp of white. One of the police Buicks is parked directly in front of the door, and the officer on watch gives him an inquisitive look. Gereon just shakes his head, steps out onto the street. The rain has become even heavier, drumming on the uneven stones, oscillating on the pavement. He pulls his hat down, his collar up and looks around.   
There she is. In the middle of the street, walking somehow unsteadily. Someone whistles after her, but she doesn’t spare them a look, just walks faster, arms around her thin, frail body. She hasn’t even put on her coat, making herself vulnerable to the icy rain and the hungry stares of the men seeking shelter in the doorways of the surrounding houses.   
He quickens her step to catch up with her. Without glancing over her shoulder, she breaks into a run. She’s remarkably fast but stumbling across the cobbled street, still wearing those ridiculous heels. When he doesn’t give up and closes in on the distance, she bends down and pulls them off with shaking hands, throwing them into the darkness and continuing barefoot.  
She’s afraid, he realizes. Maybe she doesn’t know it’s him. Or maybe, and this pains him even more, maybe she does know and that is exactly why she is afraid.  
“Charlotte!”, he calls softly. “Charlotte! Please! Stop!”  
But she doesn’t. She runs, her bare feet splashing through the muddy puddles in the street. From one of the doorways, someone calls for her in profane words. Two coal couriers leer at her from behind their wagon, one smiling obscenely.   
“Nice dress”, the other hollers. “Care to take it off?”  
He has to bite back the urge to grab them by the collar and connect his fist to their face. There are more important things.  
She’s still wearing that fling from the Luxor, barely covering her torso, the rest of her skin bare and exposed. Her whole frame is shaking now and she grips her arms tighter to keep herself together, hair dripping. She stumbles again, and this time she almost goes down, and he has the chance to catch up. She straightens up and he instinctively reaches out a hand, supporting her by the elbow. She flinches, turns around to flee in the other direction, but he grabs her around the shoulders and forces her around.  
“Charlotte.” This time it’s just a whisper. He is at a loss for words. She doesn’t meet his eyes, stares at the ground. Her shoulders are shivering under his hands.  
“Charlotte”, he tries again. “I’m … You …” But he can’t find the right words, as much as he clambers for them, and then he feels how cold her bare shoulders are under his warm hands and he does the only thing he can think of – he pulls her close.  
For a heartbeat, she resists. Then she lets him. He folds her into his arms, tight against his chest, with the intention to keep her there forever, safe from the world.  
“Charlotte…” he mumbles her name again and again. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry.”  
And he grips her even tighter. She is shivering uncontrollably and for one wild second he is reminded of himself, his trembling whenever his thirst for Morphine becomes overwhelming. He remembers how she was there for him, in that wretched bathroom. She was always there. His sun, his warmth. His rare reason to smile.  
Now it is time for him to be there.  
“You’re freezing”, he mutters, barely taking note of his own shiver. He lets her go just enough to shrug off his coat and drapes it across her shoulders, finally hiding her from the leering eyes of the workmen in the street. Then he pulls her close again. Closer. Her shoulders are still shaking, and now he realizes she is sobbing, silently. She presses her face into his waistcoat and he lowers his head to hers, burying it in her hair. It smells of rain and smoke and of a sickly sweet perfume that he’s never smelt on her before. But beneath all that, there is something that is uniquely Charlotte. It’s still her. Under all that masquerade and those ridiculous clothes, she is still the most beautiful soul he has ever known.  
“It’s fine”, he whispers. “It’s fine.”  
He knows it’s not. Not for her. Not after what she has gone through in that room. He has seen the films, Gräf had shown them to him just this morning. Charlotte wasn’t on the Luxor case so far, Gennat hadn’t wanted to see her involved. “You know I appreciate Miss Ritter as a colleague”, he had told Gereon in private. “But this one is truly not one for the Ladies. She can do gruesome and gory, but she shouldn’t have to see the this.”  
But none of them had known that she had already done much more than see. Those black-and-white images came back to Gereon’s mind, the band of men groping at the girl that wasn’t Charlotte but could have been. The girl that Charlotte was today, judging by the disarranged state of her dress and hair when they had first barged into the room. It made him sick to think of that room, of that dress she was wearing. Part of him wanted to go back right now, find the responsible individual, or the patron, or both, and punch them, hard, punch them and then put a bullet through their head. But they were long gone, and he had more important things to do.  
She was still shivering in his arms, and he knew he should get her inside, warm and dry. But she wasn’t budging and he didn’t feel the rain on his own shoulders, running down his own neck and into his shirt. He would hold her right here as long as she needed him to. The light of the lonely streetlamp didn’t quite reach them and they dissolved into the shadows of the foggy evening, enough so avoid the curious stares of the by-passers. Now that she was cloaked in his coat, they might have been a couple embracing. And Gereon had never cared less for what anyone else thought. He gently ran his hand along her back, trying to soothe her in any way he could. There are things that cannot be made better, he knew that well, but he tried. It made him feel helpless, made him remember those terrible minutes in the lake, when he’d pulled at her arm in that wretched car, all his efforts futile. When he’d left her behind. When he’d finally pulled her out and she was dead weight, not breathing anymore, pale as a corpse. Too late.  
And then, when he found her in that cupboard, drenched in sweat, unresponsive, barely breathing, drugged up with Insulin. He’d been frantic, trying to wake her, but she hadn’t moved. Too late.  
And today, he had been too late again. If they’d started their operation half an hour earlier, he could have spared her the ordeal. They would have secured the necessary evidence to take down the Luxor, closed it for good and she would never have had to go back.  
Instinctively, his arms tightened around her body. He’d never quite realized how thin she was, starved for food and perhaps for something else, some warmth in a world that had been nothing but cruel to her. Under her shivering skin, he could feel her bones, delicate like those of a tiny bird.   
But she was still here, alive, whole, and he would take care of her from now on.  
Her head moved against his chest and she pulled away, barely enough to be able to speak. She turned her face away from him.  
“I am not a whore”, she mumbled. And then, with clearer voice, she repeated the words. “I am not a whore.”  
He thought his heart might physically break at the words. He had never wanted to hear that word from her mouth, but he understood why she needed to say it. She felt the reason to defend herself, when she had no reason to, when all he wanted to do was to defend her.   
Slowly, he raised a hand and stroked her hair, pulling her head against his chest again. “I know”, he whispered, only for her. “I know.”  
She still refused to look at him and he didn’t force her to. He just hoped she knew that he didn’t judge her for it. These were hard times – people had to get by somehow. He knew she took on responsibility for the rest of her family. Keeping them fed must have been hard even before the stock market crash. He just wished she didn’t have to sell her body for it.  
“Did they see me? Will I … will I lose my job?”  
At first, Gereon didn’t know what she was talking about. Then it dawned on him that prostitution and police work weren’t exactly compatible. Bruno had always known she skirted the law at the Moka Efti, but the Luxor was an underground establishment and had just been raided by the police. Half the squad had been there. He could understand Charlotte’s worries, but the police department was currently the least of his concerns.  
“No”, he told her. “Nobody else recognized you. You were gone too quickly.” He stroked her hair again, absent-mindedly tucking a curl behind her ear as he had done so many times.   
Charlotte took a deep breath. “Gereon, I mean it”, she said, voice a bit steadier now. “I am not a whore.”  
He pulled back and this time did reluctantly disengage himself from her just a little, just enough to look her in the eyes. “I know you are not. You are a brilliant detective. You’ll be the best in the Department after your exam. Better than me, probably. You’re my best team member. You’ve the most wit of all of us. You don’t think we could fire someone like that?”  
And she was so much more. She was beautiful and lovely and radiant, but he knew she wouldn’t want to hear that right now. And it didn’t matter. Because even if she hadn’t been, he would have still fallen for her soul. He’d never met anyone who made him feel so warm and whole. What he felt for her went so far beyond her looks and his physical desire.  
She looked at him and the pain and hurt and knowingness in her huge eyes were unbearable.  
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I’ve done”, she muttered. He pulled her back against his chest, tucking her head under his arm to shield it from the rain and everything else.  
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done”, he said solemnly. “You shouldn’t have had to do it. You shouldn’t have to do it again. But it doesn’t change anything about who you are. Not to me.”


End file.
